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Goal

The goal of this project is to support our School Improvement Plan (SIP) for goal 1; goal 1 states, "Students in language arts for grades 4-10 will increase learning gains by 6%.” To achieve this goal, we have implemented a school wide reading initiative, “In order to increase literacy skills across all grade levels, the teacher will use grade level, complex text(s) through read-alouds, close and careful reading, or guided reading, incorporating WICOR strategies.”

As part of our school wide reading initiative, all students are given 20 minutes a day for silent sustained reading. But what happens when there are no interesting books to read? It is our goal to have interesting books for all students.

To achieve this goal, we would like to purchase relevant independent reading books that SpringBoard recommends getting students to read MORE outside of class; these suggested books are related to what we're teaching in class, so they'll complement the curriculum and get students to think about what we're learning even outside of class.

By providing our English 2 and English 3 teachers with fiction and non-fiction books for their personal classroom libraries, it will encourage reading and support our school goals. Additionally, these titles are fiction and non-fiction books that our SpringBoard curriculum recommended as outside reading to coincide with the themes of “cultural identity” and “the American dream” for the tenth and eleventh grade text books. What's better than having students not only read outside of class, but also have them read about the things we're learning about!  

What will be done with my students

All students in grades 6-12 have an outside reading requirement each 9 weeks; assessments for this include weekly writing entries in a Response to Reading journal and Accelerated Reader testing. Having a classroom library of books that are at their reading and interest levels is KEY to getting reluctant readers to be full-time readers during the entire school year. I want to create an atmosphere of reading and learning; what better way to have this happen then to have classroom libraries with books that are relevant to what we're discussing in class.

The impact this year will be for roughly 120 students, but imagine multiplying that number of students, reading in and out of class, year after year. The impact reaches each student who takes English 2 or 3, on our campus, for years to come!

Additionally, The following three ELA Standards will also be greatly impacted through this grant for books in the English 1 classrooms.
(1) LAFS.9-10.RI.4.10, "By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 9–10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range."
(2) LAFS.9-10.RL.4-10, "By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 9–10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range."
(3) LAFS.9-10.W.4.10, "Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences."

This grant would also provide small group novel sets, allowing the teachers to utilize the flexible novel unit study guide that our SpringBoard curriculum provides. So, not only will the students be reading interesting, challenging grade level text, but will also still be utilizing our SpringBoard curriculum. Our students love working together and what better way than interacting with amazing books that will not only increase their reading ability, but also their knowledge of the world around them.  

Benefits to my students

The Books: Windows into Our World project will be evaluated using the Floirda Standards Assessment (FSA) and the STAR Reading assessment. The STAR Reading assessment is given to the students each quarter as a means of progress monitoring as they prepare to take the FSA in the spring. There are fifty-nine tenth graders and fifty-six eleventh graders enrolled at this time. These students’ fourth quarter STAR assessment and FSA results will be used as a final evaluation of my project’s goals. The number of students impacted by this grant is 115, which means that an average of about one hundred students will be impacted by the implementation of this project every year.

Another benefit of this project is that students do not have to purchase these books for their own use. Also, the teacher can his/her students in locating a book that will grab their interest and have the added benefit of expanding their knowledge of the world around them.  

Budget Narrative

I am requesting 78 fiction and non-fiction titles in this grant. The titles with ** are the titles that will be purchased for small group novel studies. Our school library currently does not have any of these titles.

Fiction and nonfiction titles (in no order):
A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
**The Joy Luck Club: A Novel by Amy Tan
**Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography--The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa by Mark Mathabane
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas
Daughter of Destiny: An Autobiography by Benazir Bhutto
I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali
**The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood by Ibtisam Barakat
In Darkness by Nick Lake
The Namesake: A Novel by Jhumpa Lahiri
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta
What is the What by Dave Eggers
The King And The Ju Ju Tree: Forty Amazing Folk Tales from Southern Nigeria. With An Introduction by Andrew Lang by Elphinstone Dayrell
Life and Times of Michael K: A Novel by J. M. Coetzee
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe
Graceland by Chris Abani
Something to Declare: Essays by Julia Alvarez
The Bonesetter's Daughter: A Novel by Amy Tan
Big Mouth & Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
The Fold by An Na
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Waiting: A Novel by Ha Jin
Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies by Laura Esquivel
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Good Earth. by Pearl S. Buck
Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of an American Tragedy by Kent Nerburn
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah
Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science by Marc Aronson
Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad by Jacqueline L. Tobin
The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: A Doll's History and Her Impact on Us by Tanya Lee Stone
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
White Teeth: A Novel by Zadie Smith
Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth by Richard Wright
Meridian by Alice Walker
Imani All Mine by Connie Rose Porter
Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn
The Aguero Sisters: A Novel by Cristina García
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America's Finest News Source by The Onion
The Rule of Four: A Novel by Ian Caldwell
Lyddie by Katherine Paterson
Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition by Kerry Patterson
The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq by Jeanette Winter
Taste of Salt: A Story of Modern Haiti by Frances Temple
Assassin by Anna Myers
Inherit the Wind: The Powerful Drama of the Greatest Courtroom Clash of the Century by Jerome Lawrence
Johnny Tremain by Esther Hoskins Forbes
This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt
Frozen in Time: Clarence Birdseye's Outrageous Idea About Frozen Food by Mark Kurlansky
The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
An American Childhood by Annie Dillard
Friday Night Lights, 25th Anniversary Edition: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H.G. Bissinger
Meely LaBauve by Ken Wells
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Modern Classics) by Betty Smith
Illegal by Bettina Restrepo
A River Runs through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean
Who's Irish?: Stories by Gish Jen
Snow in August: A Novel by Pete Hamill
Love Medicine: Newly Revised Edition (P.S.) by Louise Erdrich
Lupita Manana by Patricia Beatty
Nothing But The Truth by Avi  

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